1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photoelectric conversion connector, an optical transmission module, an imaging apparatus provided with the optical transmission module, and an endoscope.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, endoscopes for medical and industrial purposes have been widely used, and especially a medical endoscope enables an observation of a diseased site when an insertion part thereof is deeply inserted into an inside of a body and further enables an examination and a treatment of the inside of the body when a treatment tool is used in combination when needed. As such an endoscope, an endoscope provided with an imaging apparatus that includes therein an imaging element such as a CCD at a distal end of an insertion part is available. In recent years, an imaging element having a large number of pixels enabling an observation with clearer images has been developed and an application of such an imaging element having a large number of pixels to an endoscope has been studied. In a case of using an imaging element having a large number of pixels in an endoscope, it becomes necessary to embed an optical transmission module in the endoscope for transmitting signals at high speed between the imaging element and a signal processing device. To reduce a burden on a patient and secure a field of view for observation, it is necessary to reduce a width and a length of a photoelectric conversion connector which is a hard part constituting the optical transmission module to be embedded to the inside of the endoscope as much as possible since a smaller outer diameter of a distal end part of an insertion part of the endoscope and a shorter length of the distal end part are aspired to.
Meanwhile, an optical active connector provided with a case that houses an electric connector, an optical element, and a mounting substrate at predetermined positions has been proposed as a technique regarding an optical active connector that performs a conversion between an optical signal and an electric signal. Detailed information of the technique is obtained in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-116400, for example.